Tag: birthday

As many of you know. I entered my fourth decade (!) on 1st July. I am now 30! This is weird because I don’t feel it at all. I remember turning 20 on holiday with my friends in India in 2008 and feeling like I didn’t feel ready to be in my twenties. I even felt old back then. (What was I thinking?)

Turning thirty has been bittersweet. Its been amazing and I am grateful to have made it here, older, wiser and still with hope intact. I have an incredible fiance, family and wonderful friends. But truthfully this has been one of the hardest months of my life- with my Grandma passing away and illness in the family. I have had to focus on some very sad and challenging situations in the past few weeks and spent the morning of my birthday visiting a family member in hospital- which was hard but important.

I did get spoiled with presents and cards and spent the majority of the day with my fiance, so that was lovely and he got me a chocolate cheesecake yum.

I am going to celebrate with friends at a later date too. Hoping to escape on holiday to Israel also with my fiance and just see family and friends, go to the beach and pool, see the Old City and have a much needed break in the Holy land! My best friend has just had a baby so will be good to see her too and meet the baby.

When I turned 20, I could never have foreseen that I would achieve so much personally – my degrees, travelling, new jobs, making new friends, dating and meeting my one, fundraising and volunteering- but also that there would be many years of heartache due to ill health.

The past decade, my mental health and heart were ripped in two and I had to piece myself back together after being in hospital and suffering from the worst depression (and mania) that I had ever faced. It is frightening because you never know when you will get ill as bipolar is chronic, but being on good medication to hold moods as well as extensive therapy really helps.

I have been learning to seize the day and embrace a positive mindset. As I am typing this, James Arthur is singing on youtube and the lyrics ‘The sun will rise, thank the lucky stars that you’re alive.. beautiful life ‘ just played.
The sun rises after darkness and will continue to again. I know as long as I have my support network and team around me, I will be OK.

This decade I want to achieve- my bucket list:

Be a published author and have a successful book which helps me become a speaker and advocate on mental health

Travel to the USA, Maldives, Thailand and Vietnam, more countries in Europe- islands, Croatia and go back to Madeira! Also go on safari in Southern Africa and see Zimbabwe

I would love to become a mother, with my husband

Get on the property ladder if possible

Write for the BBC, Cosmopolitan and other newspapers and continue my freelance writing career

Meet the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge re mental health work

Be happy, live well and live fearlessly. Seize and love each day

Study more Jewishly and deepen spirituality

Finally pass my driving test!!

(image: favim.com)

Heres to a new decade, with dreams manifesting and love abounding. I hope G-d blesses me and some or all of the dreams come true! We make plans and He laughs… but I think its important to clarify vision.

Thank you to all who raised money for Gigdev Ghana for my birthday and raised £520. It will help women there so much.

How am I 30?! I still feel 18 in my heart :),

Eleanor x

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(image: E Segall)
In 2010, I set off for Tamale, Northern Ghana in West Africa, with the Jewish development charity Tzedek. There were 8 of us volunteers including three of my best friends from school- Anna, Katie and Hannah- and we were all placed at different NGOs and organisations to learn about sustainable development- and make a small impact on the communities we volunteered with.

My fellow volunteers were placed at Morning Star primary School, NGOs working in rural communities- some went into villages or wrote funding applications and I and my fellow volunteer Rachel were sent to Girls Growth and Development NGO known as GIGDEV.

Girls Growth and Development was set up by the mother of Ms Selina Iddi Abdulai, in order to help combat the poverty and disadvantages that are often found in the Northern region of Ghana- and to focus on women aged 15-25 who are at risk of abuse and exploitation. Many women leave the Northern region to go to the more prosperous Southern capital of Accra in search of work- known as ‘Kayaye girls’.

However, they often become homeless, do not find work to financially support them and are at risk of exploitation by others. A lot of the women at Gigdev fall pregnant in their teens and are ill treated by men (and family members).

‘ GIGDEV offers an integrated approach towards achieving self reliance for adolescent girls at risk for exploitation by offering lessons financial literacy, leadership, and health into their vocational training program. In addition to their vocational training program, GIGDEV also runs an early childhood education program as well as an advocacy and mobile outreach program on reproductive health, good governance, and human rights.’

Gigdev gives these women hope by teaching them a trade such as dressmaking, giving them education, shelter, food and child care.

I arrived in Tamale in July 2010, after a six hour journey across potholed roads feeling very sick, but amazed by the beauty of Ghana- lush green palm trees, cities, street sellers and the women selling food and cosmetics on their heads. A totally different culture- yet so incredibly beautiful.

We were staying in a village outside Tamale called Fuo, which has mud huts and goats roaming free. I and Rachel started volunteering at Gigdev, teaching basic literacy and grasp of English and Maths to groups of women. We used Ghanaian textbooks but also used our own knowledge to help. We also taught the women basic ICT skills so they could prosper in the future and we played with their children in the nursery, while they were studying dressmaking and hairdressing.

As I began to teach the women spellings, verbs, numbers, multiplication, division, English phrases and songs- we all began to bond. Some women would sit in my classes with their babies, others would compete to see who could get their sums right the quickest and there was a lot of laughter and jokes between us all.

(image: E Segall)

All the women were so different and I got close to them – and didn’t want to leave them by the end of my 7 weeks of volunteering. I remember two particular girls- one called Zubaida and another very cheeky one whose name escapes me (in photo above) and her friend Mama.

Zubaida loved to learn and was exceptionally bright, top of all my classes and had a real thirst for knowledge. She was especially good at Maths. A lot of the women found Maths easier to contend with than English, even though English is one of Ghanas official languages, a lot of them spoke in the local dialect Dagbani or in Twi.

I had been teaching Zubaida for weeks and we formed such a bond. I never fully knew her full story- but she was bright and kind and eager to learn. When I had to leave, we were both so sad.

I was so honoured to know this woman and all the other incredible bright lights of women I met. I had several very funny and cheeky women in my class (as you can see by the photos) who used to crack me up with their jokes and fun nature. The woman in the photo above would joke around with me and her friends- I have so many pictures of them all laughing. They loved taking photos on my camera too.

I think this is what touched me so much about these so called ‘Kayaye girls’ who had been at risk but who Gigdev was looking after. That they had hope. They had passion. They had joy. And they embraced me as a privileged white woman- I feel like they didn’t see colour and neither did I.

(image: E Segall)

I remember them plaiting each others hair and putting new weaves in. I remember them singing and dancing and laughing. One day at the end of the class I taught them the penguin dance – ‘Have you ever seen a penguin come to tea?’, which they loved and we all stood in a massive circle and did the actions. They found it brilliant because it was new to them and they could just spend time laughing with their friends.

They supported each other and loved each other. I saw their strength. And their desire to have better lives.

Because of them and their positivity and the amazing staff at Gigdev- I became a better and more informed person.

They taught me far more than I could ever teach them.

And this is why for my 30th birthday, as I enter a new decade- I want to help new women to have the same opportunities, care and help that Selina and the Gigdev team provide.

Please give whatever you can towards building a shop which will sustain the GIGDEV project. The women will sew clothes to sell and sell water bottles too- as an Income Generator for the NGO.

Here is a snap shot of of Ghana experience from my diary back in 2010:

‘I am working at Gigdev as a literacy, numeracy and IT teacher for women aged between 15 and 25. I also worked in the nursery for the womens children ‘Kiddicare’ for three weeks until it closed for the summer, assisting the teachers and looking after the children.

I am finding teaching the women at Gigdev so rewarding, and I hope they are benefiting even on a small level. To be able to teach and build relationships with women around my age (i am 22!) and of a different culture, is very special and something I will treasure for the rest of my life. It is so interesting to see their reaction to what I teach them, whether that be a song as it was today, or reading, english verbs, to fractions…. which confused them at first but they soon picked up. I wish however I had more time to teach them and not only one hour a day!

I learnt that the education I have recieved is a luxury…that I can use a computer to communicate, that I am literate and numerate and can read books (let alone buy books) . I learnt that despite not having much and gone through so much, the human spirit in the women I worked with was strong, and BRIGHT and incredible……..and I hope that they go on to live good lives

Coming home from Ghana has been a very odd (and nice!) experience. At first it was so hard to acclimatise back to a culture so alien to African life, particularly in a fairly rural village surrounded by mud huts and goats where people get up with the sunrise and go to bed when it gets dark (6pm there). I found myself being confronted with contrasting lifestyles. It is hard to explain but I found a simplicity of life in Africa- without gadgets or material influence… people spend more time face to face talking together and there is a huge emphasis on community. ‘

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This weekend I turned 29! As many of you will have read, it had been a very hard week leading up to my birthday due to panic attacks so I was pleased to be able to celebrate with my boyfriend, friends and family- who came to stay, joined my birthday dinner/s, went for birthday gatherings at friends and family (including cake!) and really just enjoyed myself. It was lovely opening cards and presents and feeling loved.

The past year has been a big milestone for me in so many positive ways- new relationship, new job, new friends and time with old friends, volunteering, writing and blogging, travelling and seeing lots of theatre shows . I am hoping the year ahead will be happy and healthy and full of good things. (and as I keep being reminded, I’m now in my 30th year eek!

This week I have been able to go in to work and been managing my anxiety through doing yoga meditation and getting extra support from loved ones and wonderful colleagues.